


We'll talk later

by isadub



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Post s02e23 Soft Light
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:48:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26526241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isadub/pseuds/isadub
Summary: In the beginning of Soft Light, when encoutering Kelly Ryan, Mulder says to Scully, "We'll talk later."Had Mulder really talked later?
Relationships: msr - Relationship
Comments: 8
Kudos: 32





	We'll talk later

**Author's Note:**

> Here my attempt to answer this question.
> 
> The idea was launched on a Tweet exchange. Thanks to Cathy, Erica and Crystal for the challenge!

_ April 1995 - On the way from Richmond to Washington DC _

Mulder was driving the rental car for about one hour, Scully by his side. Since they had left the cemetery of Richmond, they had been remaining silent, Scully still mourning the brutal disappearance of her former student Kelly Ryan and Mulder unsure of how to handle Scully’s grief and guilt. 

Yet, as their long monotonous drives had always the potential of introspections and mind-to-mind or heart-to-heart conversations, Mulder finally took his chance. 

“Scully, do you think you’ll survive this damn boys’ club? I mean, the one boy one. Me, the X-Files.”

“What?”

“I’m sure you have noticed I’m a boy. And that I was alone in the X Files before you were sent to debunk my work. And…”

Mulder made a pause and tilted his head to glance at Scully. She was staring at him with a puzzled look on her face.

“Truth is, I don’t know if you deserve to stay in the basement, Scully. For your career. For the ambition you certainly might have and ought to have the right to have.”

Scully pondered for a while Mulder’s statement, looking fixedly at the asphalt through the windshield. There were no cars ahead of them, just an empty straight plane road whose far end seemed to vanish into the darkening sky. Was this sight a metaphor for her future? If so, was it a bad thing? 

She heard Mulder pick up a few sunflower seeds and put them in his mouth, a sign that he would wait for her reaction.

She sighed heavily and turned her head towards his profile.

“Truth is, I’m just happy to work in the basement, Mulder. With you. Our work is valuable and we have still a lot to do. I can’t think of doing anything else right now. I couldn’t afford to move upstairs in the FBI,  _ we _ couldn’t afford it. For the sake of the X-Files.” 

Mulder nodded at her words, still staring at the road ahead. 

He spilled out shells in his right hand and threw them in the little handmade paper box laying precariously between the right side of his seat and the console --his last concession to Scully’s meticulousness. He was relieved by Scully’s reassurance but he hadn’t come yet to the point he wanted to reach when starting this conversation. There was a more light-hearted curiosity he wanted to satisfy, but that was delicate to bring it on --especially following Ryan’s funeral. 

“And, Scully… About the very nature of a boys’ club… Er… You know…” Mulder began. 

Damn, he thought, he was once again taking a convoluted path. And Scully didn’t help him, remaining silent and inscrutable. 

“Truth is, I don’t know if I treat you as correctly as I should, Scully. As a man towards a woman... Who are working together, I mean,” he added after a quiet few seconds.

“Really? You doubt it?”

“Well… I hope not. I hope you know I consider you as an equal partner. That I completely trust you, your work, and your abilities.”

“You do, Mulder.”

“That I don’t dismiss you and your value because you’re a woman.”

“You don’t, Mulder.”

Mulder heavily exhaled a large puff of air. Sure, most of the time he would completely forget Scully was a woman. To him she was his much-needed competent partner, and now his equally much-needed friend. Yet, at other times, like a lightning striking his whole body, she was suddenly appearing in his eyes as a sheer woman,  _ the _ woman he had never dared to dream of. Leaving him speechless and at a loss for how he should or could act, he, as a mere man. 

The words Ryan had pronounced were now turning in his head. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you,’ she had said. He was also remembering the way Ryan and Scully had acted when he had entered the room. How smiling and shy Scully had been in this moment. Before the darkness had sneaked into the case. Long before Ryan’s death. 

So, on their way home in this rental car, he just would want to retrieve the lightness of these seconds in the hotel room. And to frankly ask the questions he was willing to form since then. 

What Scully had told Ryan about him? Was Scully used to speak of him to her female friends and acquaintances? In what terms? And so on, and so on...

Mulder almost spilled out some words but finally chose to remain silent himself, filling his mouth with a bunch of sunflower seeds. 

Later. He’ll talk later about these subjects. 

Eventually. 

  
  
  



End file.
